Bill Moyers died last week at the age of 91. TPM Executive Editor John Light worked for Bill for a number of years and has written this remembrance of him which I recommend to you. I wanted to share some additional thoughts about Bill and how his life affected my own and the life of this site.

The first thing I want to mention is two documentaries Bill produced in the late 80s. Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth is a series of six one-hour interviews with Campbell, who died shortly after the interviews were completed. The second is Amazing Grace, his documentary about the history and life of this song, so embedded into the cultural and spiritual life of the Anglophone world. College is a time of promise, adventure and challenge for many people. And I encountered the first of these at a moment of particular challenge in the summer of 1988. Amazing Grace debuted in 1990. I haven’t watched either in many years, though I own a copy of Amazing Grace. They explore common themes from very different directions. Both showcased Bill’s ability to bring fascinating, human issues to life in ways that are both sophisticated and accessible to a mass audience.

Last week, I read an article about the special primary election to replace the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). The Post said the race was “animated by growing frustrations with the party establishment” and called the race “an early test of antiestablishment sentiment at the ballot box as the Democratic Party is caught in a tailspin over its approach to Trump.” (Emphasis added.) As it happens, I hadn’t known this primary was being held last weekend. (No excuses, just so much else going on and it was run as a so-called “firehouse primary” on an expedited basis.) The first I heard about it was from a handful of TPM Readers who wrote in to tell me about the surprising levels of energy and turnout they’d seen when they showed up to vote. This contrast caught my attention because it’s one that keeps showing up, paradoxically unremarked upon in almost all the election coverage we see.

On the one hand, the Democratic Party is “floundering,” “directionless,” “lost.” It’s approval numbers are bleak. And then, often in the same articles, you have all this evidence of voter intensity. Turnout. New activism. Lots of new people running for office. What seems like an apparent contradiction resolves itself if you get your terms right. I don’t think the Democratic Party is in a tailspin or floundering at all. In many cases, the elected leadership of the party is. But the elected leadership is not the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is its voters. Especially it’s primary voters. This is just a signal understanding of what a party is and what constitutes its health or disfunction. I saw a headline a few days ago that was roughly, The Dems’ Latest Nightmare: Primaries As Far As The Eye Can See.

In addition to Sen. Tom Tillis (NC), Rep. Don Bacon (NE) also announced he’s retiring yesterday. There’s a lot of commentary about “centrists” and “moderates” and “institutionalists” out there and how they’re a dying breed. Whatever. This strikes me as something more straightforward. They’re both endangered incumbents. And they see that this bill, certainly now on the way to passage, is a record that basically dooms them to defeat. So they’re out. They can read the winds.